Bobi Wine expected in Zimbabwe as opposition MDC elects leader

People Power pressure group founder and Kyadondo East legislator Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine, is among 10,000 delegates and guests expected to attend the Zimbabwe opposition conference, taking place in the central city of Gweru, Harare today.

Bobi Wine, according to sources in Zimbabwe is billed to be the guest speaker as Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)  elect Nelson Chamisa as its next president in its first congress since the death of its revered founder, Morgan Tsvangirai.

“His advance team arrived at 11:00am yesterday and he arrived today,” a source in Zimabwe said.

However, Nile Post tried to get in touch with Bobi Wine’s spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi, but he could not be reached as his known phone number was off.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is likely to elect Chamisa unopposed, boosting a party plagued by infighting since Tsvangirai's death and battered by an election defeat.

Tsvangirai appointed Chamisa and Elias Mudzuri as party co-vice presidents before succumbing to colon cancer in February 2018.

Chamisa, 41, then took the party helm, becoming its champion in the first presidential elections since the authoritarian Robert Mugabe was ousted.

He lost the historic ballot to incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa, an outcome that he says was rigged.

After the blow of July's election loss, Chamisa may have the political winds behind him as the new MDC chief.

Formed in 1999, following a conference of labour, church and civic society and students groups with trade unionist Tsvangirai as founding leader, the MDC is the largest opposition party the country has known since independence in 1980.

It is the only party to have posed a sizeable challenge to ZANU-PF’s grip on power, often in the face of violence.

In the 2008 elections, Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the first round of presidential elections but failed to garner enough votes to be declared winner.

He withdrew from the runoff, citing attacks on his supporters by ZANU-PF militants and state agents that left around 200 people dead and thousands of people displaced.

Despite its prominence, the party has a long history of division.

It first split over whether to contest in senate elections in 2006, again in 2013 in the aftermath of general elections and most recently in internecine feuding over Tsvangirai’s succession.

Earlier this month, the high court, petitioned by a party district official, declared that Chamisa’s appointment as party vice-president by Tsvangira had been illegal.

The MDC says the ruling is a ZANU-PF machination ahead of the congress, and has lodged an appeal.

"Our opponents have been using all kinds of tricks to derail this great event but we are saying it is the party membership which decides the party position," said Mafume.